This December marks 18 years since the start of the case of the Jena 6 — Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Jesse Ray Beard, and Theo Shaw. 

These six Black teenagers from the town of Jena, Louisiana, were initially charged with attempted second-degree murder of a white classmate after a series of white supremacist events at their high school. Following mass resistance, their charges were reduced to still-serious aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. The movement ultimately got all charges against the six dropped to misdemeanor battery. All were free by 2009. 

Because of the racism on display in the operations of the legal system, this case sparked one of the biggest civil rights protest movements in the U.S. since the 1960s. Activists marched in cities across the country, including 60,000 in Jena itself. Below is a recent interview on the legacy of Jena with Lallan Schoenstein, who participated in the march in Jena. 

Schoenstein, who prepares the “Struggle for Socialism – La Lucha por el Socialismo” magazine for publication, is a labor union activist and retired child care worker. She’s also a graphic designer who has worked on many books, including those for the Million Worker March Movement.

Gregory E. Williams: Can you say a little bit about how you ended up traveling to Jena to support the six? 

Lallan Schoenstein: For me, starting in the 1960s, the struggle against racism was powerful and created hope for a profound change. There was the Civil Rights Movement, the liberation struggles in Southern Africa as well as many anti-colonial victories. When the militant organization of the Black Panther Party faced crushing violence by forces of the state, it laid bare the role racism played in blocking social progress.

It could be seen that the driving forces of reaction in the capitalist system were the tactics of divide and conquer, of keeping society segregated by falsely blaming the most oppressed for the ever-present threat of joblessness, homelessness, and deprivation. 

In 2006, the attack against Black high school students with a display of nooses in Jena, Louisiana, woke the whole country to the residual horrors of the slavocracy. There were protests in many cities. In September 2007, there was a huge march of African Americans in Jena while thousands across the country protested. It should have settled the issue. It didn’t. Maybe the outrageously unjust legal accusations and threats of prison sentences on the courageous Jena 6 Black students were somewhat alleviated. 

Then, in 2008, when the protests subsided, there was a backlash that arose with the ugly face of the KKK. The white supremacists planned to march on Jan. 21 on a vulnerable Black community in a small rural town, purposefully desecrating Martin Luther King’s birthday. They even won a lawsuit to march without a permit while carrying nooses, white cross flags, and even firearms. 

GEW: What types of forces from the movement did you encounter?

LS: It felt crucial to join in with wonderfully diverse groups of students and union members who were organizing to gather in support of the action of anti-racist activists in Jena. We came from Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Atlanta, Jersey City, New Jersey, and Durham, North Carolina to confront the Klan.

GEW: What was it like in Jena?

LS: At the rally, an ominous procession of big SUVs and police cars circled the local park. An organizer from Jena told us that “we have been harassed by the police, pulled over, and ticketed almost every day.”  

Following the rally, where Black liberation leaders, anti-police activists, and community organizers spoke, a group of over 150 of us marched from the park to the courthouse where the white supremacists planned to hold their rally. Around 15 of them rapidly dissolved into a wall of police. Together, they attempted unsuccessfully to intimidate our march. We chanted: “No Nazis, No KKK, No Fascist USA!”

The people of Jena did not come out in support of the white supremacist rally. Instead, Black and white gathered along the route, many in solidarity with the anti-racist protest.

GEW: What is the significance of Jena?

LS: The events in Jena occurred in a rural part of the Deep South. Currently, it would appear that many areas like this are captured in a right-wing current. To think so would be to overlook the depth of complex social structures. 

Racist bullies can whip up a superficial flood of malfeasance, especially when they are backed by the wealthiest bosses in whose interests they perform. No doubt they are dangerous. It’s important to keep in mind that real social change can only come from the class struggle against oppression. Jena showed how class-conscious unity against racism was needed then and now more than ever.

New York, Nov. 29 — Thousands of people took to the streets of Midtown Manhattan today to demand an end to the genocide in Gaza, West Bank, and Lebanon by the U.S. and its Zionist killers. The militant action was called by Shut It Down 4 Palestine. 

People gathered at Columbus Circle in front of Deutsche Bank‘s 750-foot-high skyscraper. Germany’s biggest financial octopus, with over $1.5 trillion in assets, which had helped Hitler to come to power, financed Trump’s shady business operations to the tune of hundreds of millions. So naturally these banksters also have an office in Zionist occupied Palestine.

Speakers at the opening rally included Taher Dahleh and Ibtihal Malley from the Palestinian Youth Movement; Manolo De Los Santos, from The People’s Forum; and Roger Wareham, from the December 12th Movement.

People marched across 59th Street past luxury hotels and condos before going down Fifth Avenue. Chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!,” echoed off Tiffany’s, Trump Tower, Rockefeller Center, and dozens of expensive boutiques.

Onlookers on the street were friendly and supportive. Many took photos of the signs and banners carried by demonstrators.

Marchers ended up at Herald Square in front of Macy’s biggest department store  where a spirited rally was held where a spirited rally was held. Protesters listened to a live report from a journalist in Gaza describing the suffering the U.S. and Israel are inflicting on the people there. 

In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly declared Nov. 29 the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. On that date in 1947, Palestine was divided with Zionist settlers stealing Palestinian land just as other colonial settlers stole African lands in Kenya and Zimbabwe.

It was President Harry “Hiroshima” Truman, whose career as a politician started in 1922 when he joined the Missouri Ku Klux Klan, who forced this bloody partition through the UN. 

It’s fitting that Henry Kissinger finally croaked last year on Nov. 29.

Every child murdered in Palestine and Lebanon by U.S.-made bombs dropped by U.S.-made planes is worth infinitely more than that bloody war criminal.

The struggle for liberation will continue no matter who is in the White House. Palestine and Lebanon will win!

This December marks 18 years since the start of the case of the Jena 6 Six — Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Jesse Ray Beard, and Theo Shaw.

These six Black teenagers from the town of Jena, Louisiana, were initially charged with attempted second-degree murder of a white classmate after a series of white supremacist events at their high school. Following mass resistance, their charges were reduced to still-serious aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery.

Because of the racism on display in the operations of the legal system, this case sparked one of the biggest civil rights protest movements in the U.S. since the 1960s. Activists marched in cities across the country, including 60,000 in Jena itself. 

This movement preceded Black Lives Matter by about six years and set the stage for much of the mass consciousness surrounding Black liberation, policing, and other issues in the period that followed it. White supremacist groups marched in Jena but were outnumbered and drowned out by anti-racist activists, prefiguring the events in Charlottesville, North Carolina, in Aug. 2017, where white supremacists – emboldened by Trump’s election – openly chanted Nazi slogans but were vastly outnumbered. Organized fight-back works. 

The movement was ultimately successful in securing the freedom of the six. By 2009, Mychal Bell’s conviction was overturned. Before a retrial in juvenile court, Bell pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of simple battery. The other five defendants later pleaded “no contest” to the same charge. Beyond the outcomes for these six young men, it is important to reckon with the legacy of the movement, especially in light of Trump’s second election and the onslaught of racist attacks he vows to unleash.

For this reason, Struggle – La Lucha is republishing three 2007-08 articles on the Jena 6 by Black social worker Larry Hales, who was active in the Jena 6 movement in Denver and other cities. We are also publishing a recent interview with Hales conducted because of the anniversary, as well as an interview with Struggle – La Lucha’s Lallan Schoenstein, who participated in the march in Jena.

In the following three pieces, Hales not only sums up the events in Jena but lays out the historical context of lynching and the deep relationship between Klan-type violence and capitalism. This is the kind of history that the right-wing is attempting to keep young people from learning. They would probably like the world to forget the Jena 6 and the mass movement behind them. We have to fight them.

The Jena 6 and the right to self-defense

By Larry Hales, Sept. 24, 2007 

“I don’t favor violence. If we could bring about recognition and respect of our people by peaceful means, well and good. Everybody would like to reach his objectives peacefully. But I’m also a realist. The only people in this country who are asked to be nonviolent are Black people.

“Nonviolence is only preached to Black Americans, and I don’t go along with anyone who wants to teach our people nonviolence until someone at the same time is teaching our enemy to be nonviolent. I believe we should protect ourselves by any means necessary when we are attacked by racists.”

—Malcolm X, 1965

Surely no Black person, for that matter any oppressed person, considers the hanging of nooses a prank. Nor should any white person. Such a thing is never done in jest but is a threat of an intended action, a threat meant to control behavior or actions. It is a threat of an oppressor to keep the oppressed in line. The racists who hung the nooses were very clear on what they were doing.

Thousands of Black people have been lynched in this country, extra-legally and legally. There have been numerous studies of recorded lynchings of Black people, especially between 1865 and 1965. There are no really accurate numbers but most historians agree that these numbers range in the thousands, with the largest disproportionate number taking place in the South beginning with the end of Reconstruction.

The lynchings continued even after 1965. In 1981 19-year-old Michael Donald was lynched in Alabama. James Byrd was dragged to his death in 1998 in Texas; though he was not hanged with a rope, this is still considered a lynching.

So a noose is not a benign symbol.

The young Black students, now known as the Jena 6, who sat under the “White Students Only” tree, challenging a racist code at the high school in Jena, Louisiana, took a bold action. Their action is reminiscent of the actions taken by SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and other groups at lunch counters during the Civil Rights era in the South.

When the oppressed resist or defend themselves, the state will seek to crush any inkling of resistance and defense before racist terror.

This is so because racism is a weapon of the U.S. capitalist rulers. The virulent ultra-right racists, such as the KKK or Nazi skinheads, are small. It may be difficult to ascertain their actual numbers, but relative to the actual number of people in the United States, their numbers are very small. Even the Minutemen, racists who have doffed their white robes and hoods, are small in number. They have attempted, but failed, to ally themselves with oppressed nationalities who are U.S. citizens against immigrant workers — to divide the unity of the oppressed.

But, as Sam Marcy, the late chairperson of Workers World Party, wrote in “The Klan & the Government: Foes or Allies”: “The financing and the spread of neo-fascist and downright KKK and Nazi groupings is a logical supplement to the legal repressive and terrorist apparatus of the capitalist state in times of need. For that reason, a short-lived perspective in fighting the fascist menace is erroneous.”

Movements don’t spring up spontaneously. Marcy also pointed out, “Capitalism is the fountainhead of political reaction in general and of KKK and neo-Nazi terror in particular.”

Reaction springs from the system itself. While ultra-right groupings may appear to be on the fringe and isolated, they never disappear and are never insignificant under capitalism. Groups like the Minutemen, in seething chauvinist fits, will try to appeal to the masses in an economic downturn, such as is beginning now, but they exist to confuse workers in general, to divide the oppressed from one another, but ultimately to maintain the white supremacist-dominated U.S. capitalist system.

The events in Jena highlight perfectly the racism inherent and endemic to the system. Many have and will continue to try to minimize the impact of hanging nooses by labeling it as an isolated event or a prank.

Even in defense of the Jena 6, some may say, “It was just a school fight. Why the ridiculous charges against the six young Black men?”

However, it should be stated emphatically that what the Black youths did was self-defense and that it is the right of the oppressed to defend themselves.

Demonization of Black youth

The state’s response is a symptom of the racist in-justice system. This can be seen in the criminalization of the poor, especially people of color. Black people make up half of the more than 2.2 million people incarcerated in U.S. prisons. Add the number of people in jails and on parole or awaiting trial, and the number is over 8 million.

Unemployment in the Black community has been consistently in the double digits and in major cities such as New York can be as high as 50% for young men in their twenties. The lack of health care, education, and other disparities are all glaring in the case of Black people in the U.S. and similar for all the oppressed.

Black people are vilified and Black men in particular are made society’s pariah. These are the conditions the Jena 6 — Robert Bailey Jr., 17; Theo Shaw, 17; Carwin Jones, 18; Bryant Purvis, 17; Jessie Rae Beard, 14; and Mychal Bell, 16 — lived with at the time of their arrest.

When the nooses were hung from the tree, history compounded with the nature of racism today. If Jena was and is not a racist place, as some white residents have claimed — all while avoiding the mass march that symbolized an uprising of Black people across the country in response to the Jena 6 case — then the students responsible would have been dealt with by the white residents in solidarity with the Black residents.

This, however, is not what happened. A series of events occurred, including the light treatment of the white students who hung the nooses; the threat by the district attorney to make the lives of the Black students disappear with the “stroke of his pen”; the beating of Robert Bailey; the pulling of a shotgun on Robert Bailey and two of his friends, and subsequent theft charges after the young men disarmed the white person.

Nothing was done. What were the young men to do in the wake of these attacks and threats? What was left to them in a small town that is more than 85% white?

When Justin Barker was attacked for jeering Robert Bailey and calling the young men the “n” word, the young men were standing up and defending their fellow students, themselves, and the entire Black community.

The response of the local state officials was an assertion that young Black men don’t have the right to self-defense —that they should cower and hide because the officials already showed they would not act to stop the racists.

The Jena 6 are heroes and should be held in that light, as history will attest. Their actions of defense were for the oppressed of Jena, for the people of New Orleans, victims of police brutality and racist terror. Their actions and the reaction of the state have awakened the Black masses and have sparked an emerging uprising across the country.

It is up to the anti-racist, anti-imperialist movement to lift up the Jena 6. Their freedom must be demanded. All charges should be dropped, and the D.A. should be stripped of his position and license to practice law. And the progressive and working-class movements should affirm and support the right of the oppressed to self-defense.

Jena 6: Slap in the face as Bell sent back to jail

By Larry Hales, Oct. 17, 2007

Mychal Bell, one of the six young heroic Black men that resisted racism in the small town of Jena, Louisiana — located in a parish where arch-racist David Duke received the highest percentage of votes when running for president — has been remanded back to jail.

The young men are now collectively known around the world as the Jena 6.

Bell, who spent 10 months in jail after a fight with a white student and had been convicted of attempted murder, although the white student received only a few lacerations, had his probation revoked for an old drug charge. The drug charge had never been tried.

His father said: “He’s locked up again. No bail has been set or nothing. He’s a young man who’s been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it.”

This is obviously an attempt to demonize the young man, who went to the juvenile court thinking that he would have a hearing but instead had his probation revoked. This latest occurrence is a slap in the face. After more than 60,000 people marched on Jena and tens of thousands marched around the country, awakening the anger and frustration and a spirit of resistance in the Black masses, this can be seen as little else than an attempt to quell oppressed people.

The mass marches beat back the conviction on attempted murder charges, and the court had to throw it out and admit that Bell should not have been tried as an adult. The case, however, is far from over. Bell still faces a conviction for battery, and the five other young men still face trumped-up charges; two of them still must fight charges of attempted murder.

All the charges must be dropped. Though the House Judiciary Committee is slated to hear testimony from Rev. Al Sharpton on Oct. 16, the fight must be kept up. The case of the Jena 6 is a symptom of national oppression and the plight of Black people across the country.

Movement to support Jena 6 confronted racism

By Larry Hales, Jan. 24, 2008

Jena, Louisiana, has not only become a symbol of the willingness of the state —the police, courts, and prisons — to crack down on self-defense from racist threats and attacks. Of late, it is also the latest city to be besieged by ultraright forces.

When the Nationalist Movement announced that it would march on Jena on Martin Luther King Jr. Day “to protest the holiday and the Jena 6,” many saw the march’s real intentions: to provoke fear in the Black inhabitants of the town and to attempt to use the scapegoating and criminalizing of the six young Black men who fought back against racism to the racists’ advantage.

Already, the case of the young men had attracted international attention. Officials claim that Jena is a nice town and that people just want to be left alone. When Black students protested a “white students only” tree, however, school officials ignored their dissent, and the district attorney threatened the youth.

The six endured taunts, racial slurs, and an attack. Two young Black men had a shotgun pulled on them. Instead of charges against the bearer of the weapon, the young men were charged with theft of a weapon for disarming the person.

Nothing was done to address the rampant racism. The hanging of three nooses under the “white students only” tree led to light punishment and no criminal charges, though the hanging of nooses constitutes a viable threat and act of terror. When the men who came to be known as the Jena 6 defended themselves against a white youth who taunted them with racial slurs, they were charged with attempted murder.

The acts of the men and the reaction by city officials sparked a rebellion, as tens of thousands converged on the tiny town of Jena and tens of thousands rallied around the country on Sept. 20, 2007.

Another rally in Washington, D.C., a few months later, drew more than 30,000 people, mostly Black. Many recognized the case as a matter of self-defense of the oppressed and the subsequent criminal charges as a reaction by the state meant to quell inklings of self-defense from the oppressed.

The town of Jena had another chance to redeem itself, to prove that it was not a racist town. The Nationalist Movement decided that not only would it march, displaying its vile, fascistic tendencies, but that it would do so armed.

Jena mayor praised ultrarightist

Jena’s Mayor Murphy McMillin had met with Richard Barrett — spokesperson for the ultra-right Nationalist Movement — before the rally on Sept. 20 in support of the Jena 6. McMillin has never denied that he told Barrett, “I do appreciate what you are trying to do,” and, “Your moral support means a lot.” (Chicago Tribune, Sept. 24, 2007)

The action of McMillin and the district attorney, and many of the white residents of Jena is clear enough. Reed Walters, the district attorney, threatened to make the lives of the Black youth who complained about the “white students only” tree disappear with a stroke of his pen.

Justin Barker, the young white man who got beat up, was paraded around as a victim. He also would later try to mobilize white readers of a white supremacist website, according to the same Chicago Tribune article.

It is simple to understand the climate of a town like Jena, a town that is 86% white and voted overwhelmingly for racist David Duke when he ran for governor and for the Senate. The Barker family even offered a place for Barrett to stay when he came to town before Sept. 20.

The march of the white supremacists turned out to be small, 15-30 people compared with over 150 counter-protesters organized by the Jan. 21st Committee and supported by many other groups, including the International Action Center and Fight Imperialism – Stand Together in solidarity with the Black inhabitants of Jena.

It is important in any period to drown out ultraright-wing racists and to shut down their message, no matter how small they seem. As Sam Marcy wrote in “The Klan & Government: Foes or Allies,” “The U.S. working class should not fall prey to the deadly illusion that the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan and the growth of fascist violence in widely separated areas of the country is a fleeting, momentary phenomenon, soon destined to sink into oblivion as conditions rapidly change.”

The above was written during the right-wing Ronald Reagan administration, after the Klan marched on a number of cities, including Washington, D.C. — where they were soundly defeated and driven off by a counter-demonstration.

The analysis is critical because, all too often, there are attempts to paint outright fascistic organizations and individuals as on the fringe. These violent, racist ultrarightists operate out in the open, and even during the most prosperous of times, they are always at least one weapon in the ruling class’s arsenal aimed at smashing any movement for change emanating from workers and oppressed nationalities.

That the U.S. government, local and state governments allow and even appease organizations such as the Nationalist Movement, asserting the First Amendment as their rationale for granting permits and for providing police protection for the racists from the righteous indignation of counter-protesters, shows not only sheer hypocrisy but is a sign of complicity of the keepers of the status quo.

The Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sheikh Naim Qassem, declared a significant victory over the Israeli occupation and reaffirmed the party’s unwavering support for Palestine in various forms.

Speaking after the recent ceasefire in Lebanon, Qassem outlined five pledges for the post-war period, including aiding reconstruction efforts and advancing the completion of Lebanon’s constitutional institutions, particularly the election of a president.

During his address, Qassem emphasized Hezbollah’s commitment to national unity and cooperation.

He stated, “Our national efforts will be in collaboration with all forces that believe the homeland belongs to all its citizens. We will engage in dialogue with those who seek to build a unified Lebanon based on the principles of the Taif Agreement.”

Hezbollah’s political leader also dismissed attempts to weaken Hezbollah, stating, “To those who wagered on our downfall, their bets have failed.

[embedpress]https://x.com/PressTV/status/1862541868782735573[/embedpress]

Qassem characterized the current achievement as surpassing the 2006 victory against Israel, attributing the success to the resilience of the Lebanese people and their sacrifices, despite the ferocity of the conflict and Western support for Israel.

“We emerged victorious because we prevented the enemy from destroying Hezbollah or crippling the resistance,” he said.

Qassem also highlighted Israel’s losses, noting the displacement of hundreds of thousands from northern Israel and the resistance’s relentless strikes, which he claimed left Israel in a state of strategic defeat.

The ceasefire agreement, which came into effect on November 27, 2024, marked a temporary end of months of military operations between Hezbollah and Israel, following Hezbollah’s support for Gaza during Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa.

According to Qassem, the ceasefire is not a formal treaty but rather a framework under Resolution 1701, stipulating the withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied Lebanese territory and the deployment of the Lebanese army south of the Litani River.

[embedpress]https://x.com/MayadeenEnglish/status/1862570053129933193[/embedpress]

He affirmed Hezbollah’s commitment to coordinating with the Lebanese army to secure the region. “This agreement was made under the umbrella of Lebanese sovereignty, with our right to self-defense upheld,” he said.

Reaffirming Hezbollah’s stance on Palestine, Qassem stated, “Our support for Palestine will never waver and will take various forms.”

He recalled that while Hezbollah did not initially seek war, it was prepared to engage if necessary, standing firmly in solidarity with the Gaza resistance.

Looking ahead, Qassem expressed optimism about Lebanon’s recovery and outlined Hezbollah’s five post-war pledges.

These include aiding reconstruction, supporting the political process by facilitating the election of a president by the scheduled date of January 9, and playing an active role in the country’s political and social development in alignment with Lebanon’s needs.

Concluding his speech, Qassem extended gratitude to Iran, Yemen, and Iraq for their support during the conflict. He reiterated Hezbollah’s determination to remain a formidable force in both resistance and nation-building efforts, with a vision for a unified and sovereign Lebanon.

Source: The Palestine Chronicle

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It’s so fitting that just after the 75th anniversary of China’s revolution on Oct. 1, a milestone in China’s efforts to deal with greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) has emerged in the narrative surrounding global warming. What they have accomplished shows how people’s ownership of the world’s productive forces, instead of a tiny clique of billionaires owning everything, will solve this planetary crisis.

Climatologists and scientists widely recognize that China will likely reach its peak greenhouse gas emissions in 2024, although further research will be needed to confirm this with complete accuracy. If the data ultimately shows that the peak does not occur in 2024, it is almost certain to happen in 2025. Even in that case, China would still achieve peak emissions five years earlier than its official target, which President Xi Jinping announced at the 2020 UN General Assembly. This target aimed to reach peak emissions by 2030.

Other countries have reached peak emissions as well, but because China is so huge, UN figures and climatologists are buzzing with excitement over this development. It has great implications for the entire world, particularly for the Global South. 

U.S. corporate media often portray China’s crowning achievement as a problem rather than progress.

Mass production of renewables

Chinese mass production of renewable energy components — wind and solar — has driven down the prices globally. It isn’t just the solar panels on rooftops that millions are aware of; China has developed renewables on an industrial scale — wind and solar farms built at much lower costs and capable of supplying energy for cities and industry. 

What this means to the Global South cannot be overstated. For instance, a struggling country in Africa, Latin America, or Asia relying on coal for energy can now replace a decrepit coal-fired power plant with a solar or wind farm more cheaply than repairing or replacing that coal plant. 

The flaw of wind and solar power’s intermittent availability is still there. China is still running coal plants in its territory as a backup for those times when the sun goes down, or the wind stops. 

On average, Chinese coal plants run half the time or less. This simple first step provided what seems to be an outsized result, and it can be replicated where it is needed in the Global South until the intermittency problem with renewables is resolved via other methods. 

Control over the means of production

The Communist Party of China faces a real challenge — trying to balance raising and safeguarding the living standards of 1.4 billion people while still developing its scientific and productive capacities and combating climate change at the same time. 

China’s capacity to overcome significant challenges stems from the people’s control over the means of production.

When the world’s manufacturing shifted to China in 1979, private interests began to invest in mines and other power generation sources. But that didn’t last long because the CPC and the government recognized that energy has to belong to the people, and they began nationalizing the mines. That process began in the 1980s, and now the number of mines in private hands is insignificant, and they are the smallest, least productive mines.

Inexpensive EVs

Chinese mass production of inexpensive electric vehicles has also been a factor in moving forward in the campaign to lower GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions. Millions of workers in China can now afford the price of a car, not only because 850 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty but also because China has wonderful, inexpensive electric cars. 

Over the past decade, the Chinese state has spent $230 billion on research and development of EVs and batteries. China’s spectacular success in producing electric vehicles has prevented a surge in emissions from the increased use of cars.

Some of China’s EVs sell for as little as 10,000 U.S. dollars. They are getting rave reviews and are being sold in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Europe. 

The Biden/Trump tariffs make buying one in the U.S. difficult, but the no-emissions cars are now helping to cut emissions throughout the rest of the world. The sales and use of EVs in China’s territory alone are a significant factor in reducing the world’s GHG emissions. 

Beyond cars, the shift to electric power for trucks and trains, both passenger and freight, has been crucial in curbing emissions and achieving peak emissions goals.

Environmental protection in the constitution

The Communist Party of China has taken the significant step of incorporating environmental protection into both its party constitution and the constitution of the People’s Republic of China.

The leadership of the CPC and the Chinese state do not face opposition from super-rich monopoly corporations. Still, this achievement of reaching peak emissions doesn’t mean that reaching “net zero” by the year 2060 will proceed in a straight line. 

Like many developing countries, China is still struggling to overcome what it calls the “century of humiliation,” when imperialist Western countries robbed China of its resources and used their military advantage to enforce the theft. The 1949 revolution was only the first step, and it still faces challenges. 

In the short term, China needs to develop AI, which will require a lot of electrical energy. Their goal is to power AI with renewables. 

They are also investing in research and development of many projects, ranging from areas that seem nearly ready to use, like green hydrogen as fuel whose only by-product is water, to their “artificial sun,” China’s fusion energy project. All of this is being implemented and studied while also trying to help develop the resources for global south countries to mitigate global warming and help them adapt to climate change.

2024 will prove to be the hottest year on record globally. Alongside the horrors of the genocide in Gaza and the U.S. proxy war against Russia, capitalism has dished out the most punishment of the planet in recent memory. Only socialism can end imperialist war and save the planet.

COVID-19 denier and other quacks chosen for top public health jobs

Should anyone trust a doctor who asked, “Is COVID-19 as deadly as they say?” as the pandemic was sweeping the planet? That was the title of a March 25, 2020, Wall Street Journal article that Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya co-authored as the pandemic was already killing thousands.

The doctor disputed the need for necessary public health measures and claimed that the coronavirus would kill at most 20,000 to 40,000 people in the U.S. Bhattacharya was echoing the late, unlamented radio bigot Rush Limbaugh, who had told his 12 million listeners a month earlier that COVID-19 was just the common cold. 

As of Nov. 16, COVID-19 killed 1,211,535 people in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The World Health Organization estimates that 7,075,468 people have died globally as of Nov. 10. 

Despite his record, Trump chose Bhattacharya to be director of the National Institutes of Health on Nov. 26. The agency has a $48 billion budget that issues grants to tens of thousands of researchers.

Hundreds of thousands of lives in the U.S. could have been saved if the capitalist government and corporations had protected workers from the coronavirus instead of exposing them to it. 

New York State’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority ordered its 67,000 employees not to wear masks. In a memo dated March 6, 2020, MTA officials told workers that masks “are not part of the authorized uniform; they should not be worn by employees during work hours.” At least 177 MTA workers died from COVID-19. 

Donald Trump celebrated Workers’ Memorial Day on April 28, 2020, by ordering dangerously unsafe meatpacking and poultry plants to remain open. By the fall of 2021, at least 59,000 of the industry’s workers had fallen ill, and 269 had died.

Bhattacharya used his medical credentials and Stanford University perch to attack any actions needed to save lives. He told a Florida audience in March 2021 that “the lockdowns were the single biggest public health mistake.” By that time, the pandemic had already killed 538,000 across the United States, including 32,000 in Florida. 

The panel discussion was convened by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who wants to drive Black History out of the state’s schools.

Profits before people

Preserving their profits is more important for capitalists than saving lives, even possibly their own. Falling seriously ill from COVID didn’t stop Trump from failing to protect public health.

The wealthy and powerful consider the loss of any of their capital to be a fate worse than death. That’s why they resisted the limited health measures instituted during the pandemic and why Trump is now appointing COVID-19 deniers.

The defeated French slavemasters in Haiti had a chance to escape on two vessels owned by Philadelphia shipowner Stephen Girard. Instead of fleeing, they filled the ships with gold and other valuables. 

Jean-Jacques Dessalines administered justice to these torturers and murderers. Girard sold the loot and ended up as the wealthiest person in the United States.

Dr. Huey P. Newton, who founded the Black Panther Party with Bobby Seale, called this behavior “avaricious,” meaning extremely greedy.  

Karl Marx quoted T.J. Dunning about the lengths the rich will go to make a profit. “With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10% will ensure its employment anywhere; 20% certain will produce eagerness; 50%, positive audacity; 100% will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300%, and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged.”

Dr. Bhattacharya is part of this tradition. He was one of the three authors of the Oct. 4, 2020, Great Barrington Declaration, which was obscenely named after the Massachusetts town that was the birthplace of legendary scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois.

This declaration called for ditching most public safety actions. Instead, it called for the establishment of “herd immunity” as soon as possible. This meant letting many millions of people — hopefully younger and healthier — be infected with COVID-19, which could make them immune and supposedly help wind down the pandemic.

Bhattacharya was also against vaccinating children, demagogically claiming it would mean fewer doses “available for high-risk older people in Brazil, Congo, India or Mexico.” As if Big Pharma was rushing to help: Pfizer would later overcharge South Africa for vaccines.

More dangerously unhealthy picks

So it’s fitting that Jay Bhattacharya was a 2024 recipient of the Bradley Prize, awarded by the ultra-right Bradley Foundation. Its endowment of $850 million was from selling the electrical controls manufacturer Allen-Bradley, whose Milwaukee factory refused to hire Black workers.

A 2016 Bradley Prize winner was Charles Murray, who was the co-author of The Bell Curve, which claimed intelligence was linked to race.

Trump chose Robert Kennedy, Jr. — who scorns life-saving vaccines, including those against measles — as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Fox News commentator Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, who sells her own brand of dietary supplements, was appointed Surgeon General. The TV huckster Dr. Oz was picked to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Capitalists want to massively slash both Medicare and Medicaid. Over 72 million people depend on Medicaid, a drop of millions from 2022. 

Meanwhile, the bird flu is getting worse and may cross over massively to humans to become another pandemic. It’s already been found in raw milk, a favorite drink of Robert Kennedy, Jr., who disdains pasteurization. Louis Pasteur knew raw milk could be dangerous more than 150 years ago.

The Trump team will be even more useless in a possible future pandemic than it was against COVID-19. Only by fighting back can the people’s and labor movements prevent such a disaster.

No matter what they say about the U.S. economy, finding a job to support yourself is tough when you are starting out. Finding rewarding and meaningful work is an even greater challenge for most. 

If you are that lucky, you’re preoccupied with paying off student loans and having enough money to travel or afford your own home. Thinking about a secure future after a lifetime of work might not be your greatest concern.

But listen up! In mid-November, the New York Times reported that the Social Security fund that pays retiree benefits is projected to be depleted by 2033. While they acknowledge that it is not possible for Social Security to go bankrupt — they say beneficiaries could see their checks shrink by 23%.

The Social Security and Medicare trustees just released an annual report threatening that Social Security will only be able to pay 77% of benefits to retirees by 2033. Medicare will only have enough cash to cover 89% of payments for inpatient hospital visits and nursing home stays by 2031. 

Won by worker resistance during the 1930s Depression

Social Security Insurance (SSI) was a plan designed to provide pensions, an income that could not be outlived. It was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the failure of the capitalist economy to insure the survival of a stable workforce was threatened. Roosevelt took measures like this to save the system. 

The SSI plan was set up with a payroll tax to be deposited into an insurance trust fund that would provide a retiree income, pay disability benefits, and an income for dependent survivors. 

Medicare is a separate program from Social Security. People over 65 and the disabled on Social Security qualify for Medicare. It’s financed in a similar way. 

From the beginning, Social Security faced opposition from the wealthy sector, which had never experienced the threat of poverty or starvation. Right-wing politicians and their media pundits accused Roosevelt of a socialist plot. 

Every year since then, there have been claims that the system is no longer viable, and a plan has been floated to rob this vast fund produced by the labor of the working class. Every time politicians threaten cuts, they back off because of the massive outrage that ensues.

One phony excuse they use when they talk about cutting Social Security is that the population is growing older and that there are not enough working people paying into the fund to support those who have retired. This divide-and-conquer tactic is false for many reasons:

• This is invalid because of the development of technology. Today’s workforce is immensely more productive than when SSI was established.
• Even so, wage stagnation is a problem. The last time the program was seriously revamped was 40 years ago, in 1983. Social Security was projected to remain solvent for 75 years after the reforms. Since that time, shrinking wages have meant shrinking contributions. Any shortfall is because of the continuing decline in workers’ wages.
• The income cap is a blatant swindle that allows the wealthy to shirk their responsibility to contribute to Social Security. In 1983, the payroll deduction for retirement insurance was imposed on about 90% of the wage income in the U.S. That shrank to about 82.5% by 2000. The wealthy, who don’t work for wages, are not required to pay Social Security contributions. It is widely speculated that raising the cap on the maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security deductions would eliminate a large part of the program’s alleged funding shortfall.
  
  “Growing wage inequality has put more and more earnings outside the reach of the Social Security tax and is the largest factor behind the deterioration in Social Security’s financial outlook since 1983,” said Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
• Under the law establishing the Social Security Trust Fund, it was stipulated that it could only be used for Social Security benefits and the program administration. By law, Congress cannot directly divert these funds to be used for other government spending, such as bringing down a rocketing deficit driven by the Pentagon and the military industry.
  
  Of course, there is a back door to raiding the fund. When Social Security’s revenue exceeds its expenses, the surplus is invested in special non-marketable U.S. Treasury bonds. In that way, the trust fund indirectly finances the federal government’s deficit spending. In 2007, the cumulative excess of Social Security taxes and interest received over benefits paid stood at $2.2 trillion.
  
  Because surplus funds are invested in Treasury bonds, the government can drain the money in exchange for issuing IOUs to the trust fund.

Social Security benefits aren’t enough

Social Security benefits are often insufficient, covering just a third of what’s needed to stay above the poverty line. In the past, pay compensation in any halfway decent job included a guaranteed pension plan that Social Security could supplement. Since the 1980s, these types of pensions have all but disappeared. 

Workers are now burdened with managing their own retirement investments through 401(k) plans, subject to the uncertainty of the stock market. Workers lose thousands of their savings every time there is a market downturn.

Attacks have not let up 

Congress has not increased Social Security benefits in over half a century. Cost of living adjustments (COLAs) are an inflation-adjusted increase that is part of the plan. The COLAs have never kept up with the actual rate of inflation, thus reducing the benefit payment over the years.

In 1983, when the program was revamped, Social Security benefits became taxable income. 

The 1983 revamp also gradually increased the full retirement age. Before 1983, everyone’s full retirement age (at which you receive 100% of your calculated benefit) was 65. The full retirement age is now 67 and beyond.

Another vicious attack was levied on those who needed benefits the most. In 1996, people suffering from drug or alcohol addiction were no longer eligible for disability benefits. 

2009 saw two major cuts to Social Security. People without citizenship documentation were barred from receiving SSI, even though they had very low incomes and needed it. 

The Social Security Benefits for Prisoners Act of 2009 revoked the right of incarcerated individuals to receive Social Security benefits. This affected people of color who are disproportionately jailed. Many prisoners are forced to work for pennies a day, sometimes in dangerous conditions. None of their labor is accounted for in pension benefits.

If the threat to overthrow hard-won rights protecting same-sex marriage is carried out, it means that hundreds of thousands of spouses would no longer receive survivor benefits.

The struggle for Social Security never ends. We must fight to protect it.

We need Social Security to support everyone with an income that ensures the well-being of all.

2024 National Day of Mourning

Thursday, November 28, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.EST
Cole’s Hill, Plymouth, MA

Join us as we continue to create a true awareness of Native peoples and history. Help shatter the untrue image of the Pilgrims, and the unjust system based on white supremacy, settler colonialism, sexism, homophobia and the profit-driven destruction of the Earth that they and other European settlers introduced to these shores.

Solidarity with Indigenous struggles throughout the world!
From Turtle Island to Palestine, Colonialism is a Crime!
Free Leonard Peltier! www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org

While many supporters will attend in person, we will also livestream the event from Plymouth.

United American Indians of New England (decolonizing since 1970)
info@uaine.org * UAINE website * UAINE Facebook Group

Facebook event

Watch the 2024 National Day of Mourning Livestream on Youtube

Donate

#NDOM2024 #NoThanksNoGiving
No sit-down social, but box lunches will be available.
Masks required!

2024 orientation

What Is National Day Of Mourning?

An annual tradition since 1970, National Day of Mourning is a solemn, spiritual and highly political day. Many of us fast from sundown the day before through the afternoon of that day (and have a social after NDOM so that participants in NDOM can break their fasts). We are mourning our ancestors and the genocide of our peoples and the theft of our lands. NDOM is a day when we mourn, but we also feel our strength in action and solidarity.

When and where is day of mourning?

Thursday, November 28, 2023 (U.S. “thanksgiving” day) at Cole’s Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts, 12 noon SHARP. Cole’s Hill is the hill above Plymouth Rock in the Plymouth historic waterfront area. The rallies and marches will last until approximately 3 pm (sometimes later).

Will there be a march?

Yes, there will be a march through the historic district of Plymouth. Plymouth agreed, as part of the settlement of 10/19/98, that UAINE may march on National Day of Mourning without the need for a permit as long as we give the town advance notice.

PROGRAM: Although we very much welcome our non-Native supporters to stand with us, it is a day when only Indigenous people speak about our history and the struggles that are taking place throughout the Americas. Speakers are by invitation only. This year’s NDOM will be livestreamed from Plymouth.

-Note that NDOM is not a commercial event, so we ask that people do not sell merchandise or distribute leaflets at the outdoor program. We might have UAINE t-shirts available for sale following the march.

-We also ask that you do not eat (unless you must do so for medical reasons) at the outdoor speak-out and march out of respect for the participants who are fasting.

-Dress for the weather!

SOCIAL: There will be box lunches available, but we will not have a full sit-down social due to ongoing health concerns.

TRANSPORTATION: If you cannot get to Plymouth, you can watch our livestream! We will also post information about buses and carpools from NY (Brooklyn and Bronx), CT, western MA, Boston, Maine and elsewhere if applicable at the UAINE facebook event.

ELDERS/DISABLED PEOPLE: We have some chairs available for any Elders and others who need to sit during the initial rally on Cole’s Hill. We also will have ASL interpreters on-stage.

FOR UPDATES: Please join and check out the UAINE facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/UAINE for updates on National Day of Mourning this year. Our website uaine.org will be updated, but not as quickly or frequently.

Facebook event: https://bit.ly/NDOM2024

UAINE on Twitter & Insta: @mahtowin1

COVID-19 has hit Indigenous communities very hard, and we want to ensure that no one gets sick from attending National Day of Mourning. Please wear a mask!

#NDOM2024 #nothanksnogiving

White nationalist conservatives, the”National Park Patrol,” named themselves after 2000-era Neo-Nazis charged with felonies after beating up minorities in what they dubbed “Park Patrols.”

Early Sunday morning around 2 a.m., I laid down, exhausted from a long week of outdoor work, but looking forward to a day off and a breakfast date at 9 a.m.

As I plugged my phone in to charge before I planned to sleep, a Facebook messenger notification came via a name I didn’t recognize.

A Good Samaritan had just seen a flier with my name on it, appalled by its disgustingly hateful intent, and they were not sure if they should go back and take it down or leave it for potential law enforcement evidence.

They sent a pic of it. Based on how it was placed with a type of spray glue, I knew the culprits were likely a collective of white natiobalist conservatives who also put out a lot of Nazi propoganda across the state in recent years.

In fact, one of their associates, Trenin Bayless, had gotten a shocking number of votes as a Montana Republican candidate in Butte despite local media denoting his links to extremists.

I told the Good Samaitan if there was one flier, and knowing these people, there would be a lot more in the area. I would go pull them down.

So pull them down I did.

In a 10 block long stretch from the main road areas of Grand Avenue to Broadwater from 7th Street West to at least 18th Street West. I walked the silent streets of Billings from 3 a.m.til 5:30 a.m. Thus is the duty of an Antifascists.

The first snows broke the bitter cold air about 4 a.m., my feet scrunching the only noise as I pulled down some 40-ish colored-ink fliers on dumpsters, lightposts, and on all 4 corners of traffic lights.

I woke up, and pulled down a bunch more.

Around the block I live, the fliers were particularly dense, denoting this was not only targeted intimidation at someone they deemed a “left wing extremist” (i.e. “we know where you live”) but also a coordinated team effort based on the sheer number of fliers spread out.

The fliers themselves read like tired, typical boomer-tier scare propoganda. It calls me a “groomer” of children with libelous and ridiculous implications I am a danger to children because of drag queen story hour.

It also has two pics of me, one selfie I randomly took while at Walmart the other week where I thought I looked cute, and one pic—designed to scare normies, no doubt—where I am in “goth attire” attending an rave/EDM event.

The logic—or lack thereof—children are not safe around because I am transgender, was used as an anti-First Amendment reason to ban me from doing an Indigenous history lecture at a local Butte library.

City officials cowered to the demand of white nationalist republicans like the GOP’s Bayless and other Nazis who took credit for canceling my speech. In fact, an alias account of Bayless was the first to reply—and as this flier says—and they called me a “child groomer.”

The republicans and outright Hitler-worshiping Nazis who promote violence (one of their main leaders has done felony time for violence) must have put in some serious time and effort all to target and try intimidate a single, Indigenous trans woman. They must have ran through a few pricey colored ink cartridges, as well.

But as one of the rare people in Montana who dares speaks out against their toxic, ruinous white supremacist antisemitic ideology that promotes—as according to their own “white lives matter’ handbook—genocide of non-whites and LGBTQ folks, I get why they think my free speech is a threat that must be silenced with proposed violence at me based on their bland implications I am a pedophile.

The so-called “Nationalist Park Patrol” took credit for this targeted terroristic action as they took to social media bragging of their terroristic action, and they say you should contact them so they can presumably confront/assualt me or whatever they plan on doing.

This newly formed group seems to be a coaltion of local republicans, the Big Sky Active Club, and White Lives Matter Nazis who also seem fond of the Patriot Front Nazis whom protested a Livingston Pride event earlier this year.

Patriot Front, who have an infamous instance of them all being arrested after being pulled out of a Uhaul truck for conspiracy to riot at a North Idaho Pride event, have tried to make inroads in recruiting in Montana lately.

Much of the NPPs “actions” thus far—beyond obsessing over a Billings trans woman for daring to have the “hot take” in Montana that being a hateful racist and bigot against queers is bad—seem to be finding random migrant workers in Bozeman to bully as they record them and bizarrely accuse all of them of trying to photograph white children for sexual purposes.

Not wanting to start trouble, the migrant workers usually leave the area due to this creepy harassment.

The name Nationalist Park Patrol, seems to stem from their admiration of early-2000s neo Nazis skinheads known to roam Pioneer Park (located near where many recent fliers were placed) doing “Park Patrols” which basically consisted of beating up people of color.

Their leaders had large visible swastika tattoos, and recruits ‘earned’ things like red suspenders and shoelaces if they jumped minorities.

These violent, terroristic actions resulted in eight of them eventually convicted of federal hate crimes.

I wrote about the rise of Nazi groups a few years ago in the Daily Montanan, and “Active Club” Montana Nazis took note with great amusement of the name and idea of”park patrols”—and even they wanted to scare me and put me in “danger” for daring to call attention to their violent ideology.

Fascism is an accerationist ideology, and its flames of must constantly be fueled with a steady supply of hate.

It was never going to just be about banning books that mention LGBTQ people. Or drag queens. It was about making the dehumanization of entire groups of people like migrants or trans women acceptable, so that way when violence inevitably happens to us, they hope their fellow theocratic conservatives will cheer, and other Montanans become afraid to speak out, and thus condone these actions with silence as hatred becomes synonymous as an accepted “Montana Value.”

Source: Adria L. Jawort Publication